The Feeling's Mutual
by Secretlyademigodinthetardis
Summary: Destiel Hospital AU. Two men share a room in the mental health ward, both mute as a result of traumatic events in their lives. As the months pass, they become closer and closer, helping one another overcome their boundaries. Fluffy, no smut, could be trigger I guess. Mute!Cas, Mute!Dean. Also published in my drabbles collection FYI EDIT: Now has a small requested epilogue
1. Chapter 1

**AN: I had this idea, and I hope this doesn't offend anyone. I would like to say before you read this that I don't know much about selective mutism, just what Google has taught me. So there's that. Nothing else to say, really.**

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The Feeling's Mutual

Living in a hospital isn't the most ideal of situations, but they put up with it. They ended up sharing a room in the mental health ward, in silence. Both had their own reasons for being mute, but obviously neither were going to share. Instead they shared the quiet.

During the first week, the green eyed blonde man stared at the walls. He made no effort to communicate with the nurses who brought him food, or the doctors who attempted to give him counselling therapy. He just sat there. The only person who could get him to make any kind of response was the insanely tall, long haired man who visited him every afternoon. When he appeared, the man would become instantly alert, gesturing wildly as he silently begged to be removed. The tall man brought in a blonde girl, obviously his girlfriend, sometimes, and the mute man would gesture at her, too. However, his pleas to leave were unhindered, and he stayed.

The dark haired, blue eyed man, on the other hand, smiled politely at everyone who entered the room. He had been in the room a few weeks before the other arrived, and the nurses fawned over him. Anyone who saw him was under the impression that even if he spoke, he wouldn't say much anyway. He had the quiet air of someone who patiently listened to whatever was said to him, before giving a careful, considered response. No one visited him – the reason for this being a part of the reason for his mutism – and he simply observed events surrounding him, often gazing out the window that overlooked the gardens for hours at a time.

By the end of the second week, the blue eyed man had managed to coax his companion into games of chess. Despite the fact that the green eyed man did not know how to play at first, the brunette taught him through a variety of printed instructions and gesticulating in great detail. Soon enough, they were evenly matched, and the green eyed man was learning to smile again. They moved onto other games, such as Operation (Green Eyes chuckling silently at the fact that they were playing Operation in a _hospital_ while Blue Eyes smiled at him), Snakes and Ladders, Candyland, and the odd puzzle. Sometimes they simply sat in companionable silence, reading. Green Eyes favoured Vonnegut, while Blue Eyes preferred to pore over analysis of religious texts.

They were entirely oblivious to the small contingent of nurses that watched them through the glass on a daily basis, smiling.

With the end of the third week, the giant man's visits were only every couple of days, due to his college attendance. Green Eyes was despondent at the news, but Blue Eyes soon cheered him up by sliding his dessert (a piece of apple pie) over next to Green Eyes' dessert, giving him double. Green Eyes smiled at him with real affection, and the watching nurses held their breath as the two men gazed at each other with warm fondness.

After a month had passed the two of them were able to communicate entire sentences with a single look. It wasn't uncommon for the nurses bringing their meals in to find Green Eyes sat at the end of Blue Eyes' bed, waving his arms as he signed a story, with Blue Eyes beaming, or for Blue Eyes to be stood over Green Eyes as he slept, woken by the man's wordless sobs from his nightmares. He sent away the nurses with a single look, smoothing the blonde hair away from that creased forehead, and sitting by the other man's bed throughout the night holding his hand. When it happened for the fifth night in a row, Green Eyes stopped being surprised by his presence, and looked at the other gratefully, before patting the space next to him for Blue Eyes to lie down and stop sleeping in the uncomfortable chair.

The doctor who walked in the next morning found them asleep in Green Eyes' bed, holding one another closely even asleep, and left without a word. It didn't happen every night, but it happened a lot.

And they were still silent.

Things continued like this for two months, and the occasional touches between the two became more and more frequent. Silence, but with a gentle hand brushing a cheek as one stood up to sit in his own bed. Hands touching when one made a move during chess. Staring at one another for full minutes wordlessly, because they didn't need words. Not really.

They did leave the room, occasionally. The other patients accepted them into their gatherings around the small tables in the cafeteria. One girl, petite and blonde, had slits down her forearms and a brash attitude. A quiet, nervous looking Asian boy with wide eyes heard voices claiming to be angels. A man with peach fuzz and a New Orleans accent hallucinated that there were vampires and demons everywhere looking for him. One day he left and never came back.

At the end of the fourth month, everything changed.

It was Green Eyes, this time, who was woken up in the night by the sound of sobbing. He sat up in bed, confused, and looked over at his roommate, who was thrashing around in his bed. His mouth was open in a silent scream, and Green Eyes responded on automatic, leaping out of bed and padding across the small space that separated the two before lying down next to the other mute. He ran his hands down the arms that threatened to knock the bedside lamp to the floor and held the smaller man close. Blue Eyes awoke just as he placed a small kiss on his forehead, and looked up.

For a second, they just looked at one another, before Blue Eyes smiled. They fell asleep like that, Blue Eyes tucking himself into Green Eyes' torso, and the both of them wrapping their arms securely around one another. Green Eyes still had his lips pressed into the dark messy hair when they woke up hours later.

Neither of them knew of the other's secret visits to the man who had an office on the same floor as them, where low, nervous voices leaked out from under the door, trying and testing vowels for the first time in months, becoming accustomed to the way sound felt as it throbbed along the long unused vocal cords.

The long haired man who visited Green Eyes saw the way they interacted, and related it all to his blonde haired girlfriend. He surprised Green Eyes one day by simply holding up a hand and flashing a gold engagement ring. Green Eyes jumped up, hugging his brother and almost knocking him over with his enthusiasm. After the man left, Blue Eyes laid a hand on his companion's shoulder. Green Eyes looked up at him, and tears were shining in his eyes as he smiled. The smaller man pulled him out of the chair he sat in, and pressed his lips to his cheek before folding him in his arms. They stood there for a while, breathing in the scent of one another and ignoring their racing heartbeats.

One day, six months after Green Eyes arrival, Blue Eyes walked in to find his friend sat on his bed, staring at the floor and wringing his hands nervously. Before he could tap him and start signing to ask what was wrong, the other man looked up and smiled, opening his mouth.

"Hey, Castiel."

A pause.

"Hello, Dean."

FIN

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**AN: Thoughts? Again, I am far from an expert on selective mutism and mental health, and if I've made it look offensive or something then I apologise please tell me ASAP. **


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: I honestly wasn't planning on adding anything to this. Like at all. If you don't want an epilogue, don't read this.**

**But I got a review that really prompted me to write this, and I hope it does what you wanted justice and that you like it.**

**So yeah, here's an epilogue full of love and fluff and I hope it's well received.**

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Epilogue

Talking was never really a big priority for them.

Not to say they didn't talk – they did as they recovered in the hospital, and after their release a few months after they'd said their first words to one another – but it was with soft voices, deep and rough from disuse. Every word they said to each other, therefore, was loaded with meaning. The first "I need you", the first "Are you okay?"

The first "I love you."

And the quiet whispers at night as they made love in the small apartment they bought together. All the little moments, all the whispers and words and looks they exchanged, they brought light into their lives and made it beautiful again. They were still visited by Sam and Jess, who made enough noise for the four of them anyway.

Dean and Castiel enjoyed the quiet of each other, but also revelled in the happy noise that their only family brought them.

Castiel found work in a library – the only noise there being the soft rustle as pages were turned – and Dean worked in a music store, stocking records in the back. He did smile at the occasional customer, but never really found anything to say to them.

It was a year after they had left the hospital, two years after they'd met, that Dean crawled into bed before Castiel and slid his hand under the pillow.

Something velvety and cube shaped met his fingers, and he drew out the small box before opening it.

A plain silver ring lay inside, with words engraved on the interior:

_You speak louder than words_

Dean stared, and then a soft noise made him look up at the doorway. Castiel stood there anxiously, looking at him. Dean beamed through a haze of tears and slipped the ring onto his finger as he nodded.

And that was all that was needed for Castiel to launch himself onto the bed and onto Dean, as they wrapped their arms around each other and kissed soundly through the salty tears that now made themselves known.

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The wedding was exactly the way it should have been – small and quiet.

They refused to get married in a church, and nowhere really seemed right. They did consider the hospital where they had met, but that was….a bit much.

So on the outskirts of town, in a small orchard, Sam and Jess watched as Dean and Castiel looked into the other's eyes, and murmured their vows as if they were the only ones there. The officiator, a timid man named Chuck who had (by some miracle) become a priest online and employed Castiel, declared them married, and the two of them kissed as Sam and Jess cheered.

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And ten years later, their house was filled with sound as two toddlers chased one another, laughing. Dean and Castiel were still quiet, but it was a different kind of quiet. They basked in the happy noise of their children – a boy named James and a girl named Mary – and their niece, who (to Dean's delight) was named Claire, after Castiel's mother. It was the quiet that comes from contentment and being surrounded by those you love, and Dean loved nothing more than to sit and watch as Castiel played with the twins, singing to them and teaching them how to read in his gravelly, throaty voice. Likewise, Castiel would watch as Dean tucked the two of them into bed, and read them a bedtime story in husky tones.

Their favourite one was "And Tango Makes Three".

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**AN: "And Tango Makes Three" is an amazing kids book about two penguins in Central Park Zoo if you haven't read it, just look it up and it'll make sense.**

**I love that book.**

**So, no plans to come back here, this is me finishing it off.**

**Reviewer who requested this: I suck at this kind of stuff but this was all for you. Your brother sounds like an amazing person and I also wish he'd had that instead of what he got. But I hope you manage to feel better, because you are a great human being and there needs to be more people like you in the world. I'm not going to keep rambling here and end up sounding like a douche, but I do mean what I say.**


End file.
